


reassemble

by glitch_writes



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Abusive Parents, Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26356123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitch_writes/pseuds/glitch_writes
Summary: Even if they don’t know themself, Kazuichi knows who the Imposter is. They’re kind and caring, even if they don’t act like it. Quick to tell the blunt truth but quicker to aid a friend.Kazuichi, on the other hand. Kazuichi is…Maybe he’s not completely sure of who he is. But who is, anyway?Maybe… Maybe it can’t hurt to think it over a little, though. To think over the parts that make him him. Like a machine - disassemble the parts, check ‘em out, reassemble. That’s what he does, after all.
Relationships: Soda Kazuichi & Chou Koukou Kyuu no Sagishi | Ultimate Imposter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	reassemble

**Author's Note:**

> for the growth zine! aah it was such an honor to be a part of it!

The question’s picked away at Kazuichi’s mind time and again, the smallest curiosity that rattles like a loose bolt. There’s dozens of obvious reasons he suspects, reasons he’s used like a wrench to keep the question at bay until the bolt’s edges are stripped, and it slips from his mouth.

“Hey, why don’t you ever impersonate me?” 

Dozens of obvious reasons, and the answer he gets is none of them.

“Because you’re like me.” 

“Huh?!”

“You don’t know who you are.” Togami- for today, anyway- doesn’t so much as spare him a glance, let alone an explanation that makes any sense. “You’re wearing a mask, too.”

Disassemble, reassemble. See how it goes.

The engine’s a real beauty - sleek and slim, but oh, how it roars. It reminds Kazuichi of his buddy Fuyuhiko, supreme power in a deceptively small frame. With this, his bike can reach 630 mph, no doubt about it. 

It’s spotless, too. Not a dent or spot of grease marring his reflection. 

Only pink eyes staring back at him. 

_ “Because you’re like me.” _

He swipes his thumb over the steel, a slick of grease to hide the thought. 

“What the hell are they talking about, anyway,” he huffs, wrench back in hand to take it apart again. Disassemble. “‘Wearing a mask’, my ass.”

He likes how he looks. In a way. He picked it, after all - cool hair, cool eyes, cooler attire. Sure, maybe it wasn’t him, but so what? A look doesn’t define a person, just how others see them. 

Like when he started dressing this way, and it pushed his former so-called friends away. Pushed away anyone that could have betrayed him. But he doesn’t need that anymore. He has friends he trusts - including Togami, or whatever mask they wanna wear. 

Even if they don’t know themself, Kazuichi knows who the Imposter is. They’re kind and caring, even if they don’t act like it. Quick to tell the blunt truth but quicker to aid a friend. 

Kazuichi, on the other hand. Kazuichi is… 

Maybe he’s not completely sure of who he is. But who is, anyway?

Maybe… Maybe it can’t hurt to think it over a little, though. To think over the parts that make him him. Like a machine - disassemble the parts, check ‘em out, reassemble. That’s what he does, after all. 

The old family shop is nothing but rubble. He's not surprised, and not because nearly everything is rubble nowadays. 

It was his dad's shop, after all. He never did build things to last - only to suit his needs.

He crouches over a pile of gravel and dented parts, digging through the pieces for anything worth scavenging. Just like he did with his father's teachings - clinging to the broken lessons, clutching them so tightly it cuts into him, because he's scared of what happens if he lets them go. 

It was better to get cut on broken parts than have his father find out he "wasted" them. Better to slice his hands on metal than deal with his father's wrath. 

"What should I care," he mutters as he sifts through the pile of soot and steel. "The bastard's not here anymore. I can do whatever the hell I want."

Except the old man taught him just about everything. 

He taught him how to use a wrench, and how to build a bike from scraps. He taught him how to be a man, that he had to be tough and to 'stop crying all the damn time'. He taught him that it was all about blondes, that he had to love hot, curvy women with long locks and glossy lips. 

His entire framework was thanks to the old man.

"The bastard's not here anymore," he repeats, hardly a whisper. "I can be whoever the hell I want."

He takes frames apart all the time. No big deal.

Disassemble. Yeah. Yeah, he could do that. No problem.

It’s a problem.

He's held together like a machine, one piece of himself leading to another - a nut leads to a bolt leads to a gear, a quirk leads to an insecurity leads to a memory better left buried. But it’s all rusted together, remnants of despair clinging to his core, everything dented and warped by a man who's long gone. A man that shoddily built him, and Junko was the happy customer.

Why is he crazy about Miss Sonia? Cause his dad told him real men like blondes. Why is he a crybaby? Because he never could help it, and the old man’s not around to “give him a reason to cry” anymore. Why is he a scaredy-cat? Because his dad, his dad, his dad, memories of a hand that never missed its mark, a hand that hammered in the instinct to flinch, to cower, to hide.

He wants to take it all out. Throw it all away, replace everything with parts so squeaky clean he could see himself in them. Maybe then, he could stomach his reflection.

But his dad taught him not to throw things away, and that’s the only lesson from the old bastard that he plans to take to heart - to salvage himself, no matter how much his dad and Junko warped him. Disassemble the parts, check ‘em out, see how he can make them ten times- no, a hundred times better. That’s what he does, after all, and no amount of rust or dents has ever stopped him before. 

He starts with his dad’s favorite word: “manly”. What does it mean to be “manly”? What makes him a man? 

He thinks, and he thinks, for days and weeks. 

He asks his friends, but they all have different answers, and none of them make sense. Even the Imposter, who’s copied men and women alike, offers nothing more than a scoff and a vague response about societal expectations. 

So Kazuichi decides there’s no right- or wrong- way to be a man. And he doesn’t stop there; he tries different pronouns and different names, testing them like he tests an engine in his bike. 

He still feels like a ‘him’ after it all, still feels like a “Kazuichi”. But now, with more certainty.

The deeper he dives down the rabbit hole of self-discovery, the more he realizes he knows nothing about himself.

Like his love for Miss Sonia. Lovely, lovely Miss Sonia. Besides her perfect hair, her perfect curves, her perfect everything that his father told him to like - What does he like about her?

What does he know about her? 

He thinks, and he thinks, for days and weeks. 

And finds the lack of answers make an answer of their own.

He knows plenty about Hajime, though.

Fuyuhiko, too. And Nekomaru, and even that bastard Gundham Tanaka. He thinks about them plenty. 

He thinks about them for days and weeks.

He finds an answer he was avoiding before, a part of him he buried deep in the rust. But now, it doesn’t seem so bad. Yeah, liking guys doesn’t seem so bad at all. 

Reassemble, see how it goes… 

He takes the parts of him - the parts he’s fixed, the parts he dug up, and the parts he found along the way - and he builds the man he wants to be. The man he truly is.

A man that's not afraid to cry, a man that doesn't think less of himself for being easily frightened, a man that doesn't hold back. 

A man that knows he's a man not because he was told he was, but because it's what feels right. A man that likes men and won't deny himself for it anymore. 

"Why dontcha try impersonating me?" 

This time, Kazuichi asks as a joke. He knows the reason - one that has nothing to do with him.

"Because I don't do that anymore." A leader when their friends need one, a master swordsman when times are desperate, an artist in their spare time - the Imposter wields their Ultimate title because of all the skills they've imitated over the years, but it stops there. Grey eyes, a suit of their own liking, a personality that only they possess - they're their own person. 

Their hair isn't so unique, though. Black hair to their shoulders, natural and silky. Just like Kazuichi's. 

"But if I did still mimic others," the Imposter continues, with a warm smile reserved for the closest of friends in the rarest of times, "I wouldn't mind copying you."

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Kazuichi smiles back, throwing in a wink and a thumbs up. “We got no more need for masks anymore - neither one of us!”


End file.
